


Confined Spaces

by zarrati



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, stuck in an elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6509647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarrati/pseuds/zarrati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the trope prompt: Leslie and Ben get stuck in an elevator</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confined Spaces

“Hold the door!”

Leslie hits the ‘close’ button faster, but Ben’s arm slips between the doors just in time.

He slides his surprisingly small and nimble body into the elevator, and Leslie crosses her arms with a frown.

“Thanks,” he deadpans, tucking himself into the back corner of the car. “Can you hit 5 for me?”

She doesn’t budge.

“Okay, I’ll do it myself.”

The ride is quiet and filled with angry tension–most of it coming from her. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by her scowl or silent treatment, and that only pisses her off even more.

Who does this guy think he is? First he comes in and insults her department _and_  her town, then he shuts down her government and tries to tell her she’s not “essential” enough, it’s his fault City Hall has been a ghost town all summer, and now she has to share an elevator with him?

They’re almost at her floor when the elevator jerks and she falls into something firm and solid, yet kind of soft at the same time.

She realizes it’s not the wall because the wall doesn’t have hands to grip her shoulders and steady her.

The car is pitch black for a few seconds while she tries to get her bearings, and the emergency lights switch on.

She jumps back when she sees that it was Ben she had fallen into and smooths her hands down her clothes.

“You okay?”

She’s shaken but not hurt. “Uhm, yeah, I’m fine. What happened?”

“I think the power went out.”

“So, we’re stuck here?”

“Until someone can fix the problem, yeah. There should be an emergency elevator evacuation procedure in place just in case-”

“Yes, I know. I helped write it.”

He sighs. “Of course you did. But we’re still stuck here until someone is able to get to us or the power comes back.”

“So, I’m stuck here? With you?”

“I’m pretty sure I answered that already.”

Leslie runs to the doors and screams for help.

~~~~~

After about ten minutes of screaming, Ben finally has enough.

“Leslie! I don’t think anyone is around to hear you.”

She whirls around. “Oh, yeah? I wonder whose fault _that_ is. Getting rid of basically everyone that works here so there isn’t anyone around _anywhere_.”

He snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure you’d much rather your entire town go bankrupt and then everyone would be out of a job indefinitely. That’s so much better. You want to go ahead and take out all of your anger on me, fine, but you’re disillusioning yourself if you think things wouldn’t have gotten much, much worse if we hadn’t come here.”

She’s so angry that she can barely string more than two words together that wouldn’t guarantee her getting fired. She chooses to grunt in frustration instead.

“Ben! Ben Wyatt!”

The sound is distant and muffled, but it’s definitely there. Ben hears it too and he perks up, moving to the door.

“Chris?! Chris! In here. In the elevator.”

He pounds on the door until Chris’ voice gets louder.

“Ben! Thank goodness. There’s been a power outage. I realized you were no where to be found, and wasn’t sure if anyone had checked the elevators. Are you alright?”

“Yeah. We’re fine. Leslie is here with me.”

“Leslie Knope! I am very sorry that you two are in the predicament that you’re in. We are looking into the cause of the power failure and ways to free you, but unfortunately with the cutbacks, we are low on maintenance staff. It could be several hours before we are able to get you out.”

Leslie gives Ben another deathly glare. “We might be stuck up here for hours?!”

“Unfortunately, yes. But I am going to do my best to make your rescue the top priority. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go let everyone know we found you. I’ll come back to check on you as often as I can. I do hope you brought some water with you to stay hydrated. The power outage means no more air conditioning, and it’s a scorcher out there today. Bye!”

Ben rests his head on the steel doors, sliding down to his knees. “We’re stuck.”

“Yeah, I got that.” She sees Ben turn a little pale. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“Nooooo. No, no, no, no. I’m more just not a fan of being stuck inside of a little box with no air in thousand degree heat and the possibility that we can be plunged to our deaths any minute now.”

“Oh would you just stop it. We’re going to be fine. And if we aren’t, well, as we plummet to our deaths, you can think about how this probably wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t come to Pawnee in the first place.”

Ben just crawls into the corner and puts his head between his knees.

~~~~~

An hour later, they’re both drenched in sweat on opposite corners of the elevator. Leslie said “screw it” to the dress code and tossed of her jacket and rolled up her pant legs about fifteen minutes in. Ben had long ago taken off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, the white t-shirt underneath nearly soaked through.

At least he isn’t still panicking.

“I’m really not a monster,” he says in a dull monotone. 

“Are we really going to do this? We aren’t going to die, so you don’t have to try and atone for your sins or anything.”

“Maybe I want to explain myself a little bit. And since there’s no where you can escape to, I figure now’s my chance.”

“That’s not even the least bit fair.”

He has the energy to muster a tiny smile. “Now you know how it feels like when you schedule all of those meetings with me. And don’t tell me you weren’t thinking about using this to _your_  advantage. I just beat you to it.”

He isn’t wrong, and that also annoys the hell out of her.

“You just think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

“I know I’m smart. There’s a difference.”

Leslie frowns and crosses her arms. “Tell me again how you’re not a monster?”

He chuckles a little bit, and if Leslie didn’t know better, she’d swear that he sounds a bit delirious.

“I’m really not. It’s just I have a hard job to do. I have good intentions. You have to believe that. I don’t want your town to go bankrupt. I don’t want you all to loose your jobs.”

“You literally tried to fire me.”

“Yes, but it has nothing to do with _you_. Nothing personal. You were just a name on a list.”

“And you don’t see that as a problem?” she asks. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you from the beginning. You waltz into a town and all we are to you are numbers. You don’t know what we’ve done, how important we are to the community. I get what you’re trying to do. Honestly, I do, but it’s like you’re just so focused on those dollars and cents in your spreadsheet that you don’t care how you get under budget.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I know. Sometimes it’s just easier that way. Everyone’s got a sob story, everyone’s got a reason why they shouldn’t be laid off. If I get too involved, I can’t do my job. If it’s any consolation, I do wish we had the money for you to do everything you want. They’re really great ideas.”

Leslie looks at him like he’s grown another head, because, honestly, _that_  would be less surprising to her than what just came out of his mouth.

 “Wait, are you serious or just making fun of me?”

“No, I mean it. You’ve got great ideas, and I didn’t know it at first, but you’re a really great worker. Your department is lucky to have you. The problem is that there is just no money to do any of it.”

“Oh, well, thank you. I think.”

His head is leaning back against the wall and he’s looking at her with this soft smile that…that makes her insides feel a bit funny. She doesn’t think anyone’s looked at her like that in a really long time. It’s kinda nice. 

Ben scoots across the floor and sits himself next to her.

“You’re welcome. And I know we’re not going to see eye to eye throughout most of this, but can we at least try to be civil?” He holds out his hand and Leslie stares at it.

“I’m having a vague sense of déjà vu.”

“Ha, yeah, the first time I tried this you weren’t exactly sober.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she grimaces, but he just shrugs her off.”

“Again, not the worst that’s been done to me. So, are you gonna shake my hand or leave me hangin’?”

She giggles despite herself and shakes. An _actual_  shake this time.

“Can I ask you something? Why were you even at the Snakehole? I know you don’t like to go out, and I feel like you’re an expert at telling Chris no, so…why?”

He turns his head away, and it almost looks like he’s blushing. It’s a thousand degrees in here, so it’s hard to tell, but it totally looks like it. 

“I don’t know. I guess I was curious. And I knew you’d be there. I wanted to, well, do what we just did. I like you, despite the fact that we got off on the wrong foot. I don’t know.”

“Oh, well thanks. You’re not too bad either, I guess.”

He smiles again, and yup, it’s actually really nice. “Hey, I’ll take it. And look, all it took was the threat of us almost dying.”

She’s not sure what possesses her, but she nudges his shoulder with another laugh.

And she likes it.

~~~~~

Leslie’s laughing so hard she can hardly breathe. 

Turns out that Ben has some pretty good stories from the road. 

“You’re not serious!”

“I kid you not,” he says. “The town _maybe_  had two hundred people in total. Basically all corn and cattle. Like, seriously SO many cows. I think they outnumbered the people like 20 to 1. But yeah, anyway, the first day they’re trying to butter me up, you know. I swear every family drops off a casserole at my motel room. I must have had like thirty of them. By the end of that first week, they were seriously threatening to run me out of town with torches and pitch forks. A few even showed up with them!”

Leslie’s cackling and nearly falls to the ground. The dehydration’s made her a bit loopy, it seems, but the stories are hilarious.

“I’m surprised they didn’t try to tar and feather you.”

“Oh, no. That was week two.”

His face is completely serious for a few seconds before he grins. 

“Oh, my God! I totally believed you, too.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The first part was true though. I don’t think the city could afford enough tar anyway. Otherwise, I’m sure they’d have tried.”

“Oh, man.” Leslie wipes tears from her eyes. “I’m not even the least bit sorry that I find your pain so amusing.”

“Hey, I can laugh about it now. Even I have to admit some of it’s hilarious.”

She sighs, her head back against the wall, neck turned in his direction. They’re sitting closer now, for some reason. Closer than she thinks she’s ever been before.

He finally couldn’t take the heat and lost his plaid shirt somewhere in the middle of his stories, and she has to admit, he has really nice forearms.

Not that she’s looking.

But he’s looking at her again, in that weird way that makes her feel all warm and fuzzy.

“I am sorry, you know. For how I acted before. Sometimes you’re Mean Ben, but not always. I don’t think I properly thanked you for paying Freddy Spaghetti to come back. How much did that cost you, anyway?”

He laughs. “A lot. But it’s fine. I wanted to do it. It was worth it to see the kids happy.” He pauses. “And you. I know you didn’t want to hear it, but I knew that a lot of bad things were coming. If I was able to do something nice that might soften the blow, I was gonna do it.”

Alright, who is this guy and what did he do with the real Ben Wyatt? The mean one. The one that didn’t smile this much at her or have really nice eyes or a bottom lip she didn’t all of a sudden have the urge to suck on.

Leslie blames it on the heat making her delirious, but that’s all moot now because she’s staring at his mouth and he’s licking his bottom lip and neither one of them are pulling away.

Ben kisses her first, that much she knows, and it’s not soft and tentative like she would have thought.

No, he’s eager, his hand cupping the side of her face, fingers tangled in her hair. It’s like he’s been waiting a long time to do this.

But she doesn’t mind because her personal, confused feelings about him aside, he’s a really good kisser. Like, an amazing kisser, and it’s been a really long time since someone’s made her feel this good.

Okay, the heat and low oxygen levels must be making her crazy because she’s straddling his lap and moaning into his mouth like she _didn’t_  hate his guts two hours ago.

She’s so turned on she’s almost embarrassed, but it’s obvious to her now that Ben is too. At least she can write down ‘dry humping the state auditor’ on her list of things she’s done today.

His hand slides up her untucked shirt and hovers just below her breast.

“Tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t, despite every rational thought telling her that she should. Instead, she grabs his hand through her shirt and puts it on her breast. 

Leslie moans when he squeezes. Good Lord has it been a long time since a man has touched her like this. 

There’s a very strong chance that she’s going to have sex with Ben on the floor of a City Hall elevator, and instead of being scandalized, all she can think about is that she should have worn a skirt today. 

He’s undoing her buttons when the lights flicker.

“Ben! Leslie! Can you hear me?”

It’s Chris, and she’s never hated him more than in that moment.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Ben mutters and leans his head back against the wall.

Man, she really wants to take a bite out of his neck.

“Uhm, yeah.” She clears her throat. “Yeah,Chris, we can hear you.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I have wonderful news! They are just about to get the power back on, and once that happens, it’s a quick override of the elevator safety interlock and you’ll be home free!”

“Great.” Ben doesn’t act like it’s so great.

“Leslie?” Wait, that sounds like her best friend’s voice.

“Ann! What are you doing here?”

“Chris called me. I came to check you both out and make sure you’re okay”

“Oh, okay! Thank you. I love you!”

Like whatever spell had come over them was broken, Leslie licks her lips and buttons her shirt back up, sliding off of Ben’s lap.

“Sorry, that was, uhm…”

“No, yeah, totally,” he replies, and okay, so they said and solved nothing.

The elevator jerks again just as she’s reaching for her jacket and Ben’s “adjusting” himself.

The doors open and about half a dozen people are on the other side clapping, Chris beaming proudly in the front and Ann already in nurse mode.

“Thank goodness you’re okay. We were so worried about you.” He puts his arm around Ben’s shoulder. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you rehydrated.”

“Yes,” Ann says to Leslie, “you, too. You look really flushed. Are you experiencing headaches or anything? Do you feel nauseous?”

“Uhm, no, I’m fine. Just hot, tired, and thirsty.”

Ben goes one way and Leslie goes another, their eyes locking briefly before they turn opposite corners.

She just wishes she knew what was going to happen now.


End file.
